From the Agreement vs. Certainty axes in the Stacey Diagram, one might infer how governing bodies become mired in the quicksand of partisan groupthink and self-serving agendas.

The quicksand of partisan groupthink and self-serving agendas, particularly the quicksand that is the fact-averse and evidence-bereft terrorists who hijack rational discourse and media cycles by making outlandish, patently false, or inflammatory actions and assertions (e.g, Political Personality Sarah Palin or Russian President Vladimir Putin), consistently fails to serve the Common Good.

A governing body with the will and capacity to drive policy from evidence, rather than from a the dull blade of a partisan political ax, or from the battle ax of a power-brokering personal agenda, has much greater potential to elevate the Common Good.

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed. ― Woodrow Wilson

06 March 2014

Tiny zircon crystals found in a remote part of Western Australia known as Jack Hills are dated at 4.4 billion years old.

Looking at an info-graphic that accompanies an NPR article reporting on the dating of Earth's oldest rocks, I am struck by how comparatively recent humans arrived on the existential scene.

I am also struck by how willfully ignorant it is that many cultures deify a human-featured god in the form of (insert heralding trumpets) an adult male.

Perhaps what we share most deeply as humans is an unanswered need for a compelling existential narrative ― A Big Narrative.

I follow the narrative of cosmology and earth science. This narrative satisfies and reassures me as it unfolds. This narrative is a page-turner with potential plot points as new information arrives on the doorstep of scrutiny.